A Storage Area Network (SAN) is a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated groups of block-level storage devices. A SAN enables multiple servers to share the storage devices, so that SAN users do not need to acquire additional servers to increase storage capacity.
A SAN environment can have architectures can that are extensive and complex, with a large number of components and connections between those components. Troubleshooting SAN environments can be very difficult and time consuming without documentation describing how the system is interconnected.
Existing data gathering and analysis tools do not produce clear and precise configuration documentation that SAN support teams need to efficiently perform their tasks. Without precise information about the target SAN environment, the amount of time and effort it takes to analyze the environment and identify solutions can be significant. Further, without accurate documentation, the support team may have no alternative but to purchase components to solve problems that would be unnecessary if the team had adequate visibility into the system.